


Fair Play

by fabrega



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Blackwatch Era, Dubious Science, Established Relationship, Family, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: The person staring up at Jesse, the one with Gabe's voice and Gabe's face, is young, somewhere in his teens by the look of it. He looks scared, and defiant, and so impossibly small."My name is Jesse," Jesse says. "Are you Gabe Reyes?"The kid nods.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes
Comments: 16
Kudos: 87





	Fair Play

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in 2017, and now, after thirty thousand years languishing in my WIPs folder, it's finally done. Thanks so much to [smarshtastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smarshtastic/pseuds/smarshtastic) for the beta, and to the discord gang for the encouragement.

Jesse fumbles on the nightstand for his comm, which is beeping at him angrily. It takes him long enough to wake up and grab it that he misses the call, but the screen flashes impatiently too: three missed calls, all from Angela Ziegler.

He's wide awake now. Gabe had been admitted to the infirmary several days ago after a Blackwatch op gone horribly wrong. After multiple days spent at Gabe's bedside with no change, Jesse had been sent back to his own bed last night by Dr. Ziegler with the assurance that she'd call him if anything changed.

Well, she called--and he can't imagine her calling multiple times in a row to tell him _good_ news.

He calls her back.

"Doc?"

"McCree, finally." Angela pauses. Her voice is worried. "You should... You should get back here."

He practically sprints from his room to the infirmary, weaving his way through the halls, nearly bowling over several agents on his way. He runs through the doors of the infirmary and back into the maze of patient rooms, only skidding to a halt when he reaches the one where he'd left Gabe.

Angela is there, and so is Moira. Both of them are standing in the hallway, between Jesse and the door, and both of them look pissed off.

"No one asked you to do this. He's _my_ patient," Angela practically spits. Jesse's not sure he's ever seen her look so mad.

"He's my _responsibility_ , and your 'medicine'--" Moira makes exaggerated air quotes, and Angela splutters, "--wasn't working. Enough time had passed that he should've been getting better."

"He's not your responsibility, he's your _commanding officer_ , and I am his _doctor_. You don't start a new treatment regimen without consulting me. That you had to sneak in during the middle of the night once everyone had gone ought to have been a sign that you--"

Jesse cuts in, his voice hard and low, and both women stop talking immediately. "Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

"He's _fine_ ," Moira says. She doesn't roll her eyes at them, but it sounds like it is a close thing.

"He's--" Angela starts, stops, then starts again. "There's nothing medically wrong with him. All his injuries are healed."

"The genetic treatment worked." The smile Moira gives them looks practically beatific, but something about the way Doc Z had phrased it--

"Tell me," Jesse says.

Angela steps aside, pushing the door to Gabe's room open so that Jesse can enter. Jesse glares at Moira as he moves past her, because he's angry at her, always, and that's easier to do than think about whatever might be waiting for him in the room ahead of him.

The infirmary bed is empty. Where he expects Gabe to be, there's only a mess of rumpled sheets, and the bottom drops out of his stomach before he forces himself to stop and take a deep breath. The doc had said there wasn't anything medically wrong with Gabe, and they wouldn't have sent Jesse in if Gabe wasn't here, somewhere.

"Gabe?" he calls.

"Who's asking?" The voice comes from somewhere on the other side of the bed. It sounds...off, but Jesse can't quite place how or why.

"You don't know me?" Jesse asks. Amnesia, then, or--

A head pops up from behind the other side of the bed, and its owner eyes Jesse suspiciously. "Should I?"

Jesse knows that face, knows that voice--it's Gabe, it has to be, even though it's not a version of Gabe that Jesse has ever met. The person staring up at Jesse, the one with Gabe's voice and Gabe's face, the one who apparently doesn't recognize him, is young, somewhere in his teens by the look of it. He looks scared, and defiant, and _so_ impossibly small.

"My name is Jesse," Jesse says, making sure his voice is calm and authoritative even though his stomach is churning. "Are you Gabe Reyes?"

The kid nods.

"Why are you hiding, Gabe?"

"I'm not hiding, I'm... strategically regrouping." Gabe grabs onto the IV stand and climbs back into the bed, perching on the edge of the mattress. "Nobody will tell me where I am or what's going on, so I'm gonna bust myself out."

Jesse laughs. "How old are you?"

"Old enough!" Gabe sticks his chin out defiantly as Jesse steps forward to take a careful seat on the other side of the mattress. "I'm seventeen."

Of course he is. Of _course._

"Well," Jesse says easily. His tone belies his racing thoughts and mounting panic, "I didn't manage to escape here at seventeen. Maybe you'll have better luck? But if I were you, I'd wait and see what the doctor says before I did anything too stupid."

Gabe squints at him suspiciously. "You're not a doctor. Why are you here?"

Jesse looks back at him, wondering how to answer.

* * *

They convene in a conference room on the medical wing, Jesse and Angela and Moira and Captain Amari and Strike Commander Morrison all around a briefing table.

"I can't believe you told McCree before you told me. I'm Reyes' commanding officer, and I ought to have been briefed," Morrison grumbles.

"We followed procedure, Jack," Angela says, a frown creasing her brow. "There was a medical emergency, and we contacted Agent McCree. You were briefed exactly when you should have been: right now."

Morrison makes several more grumbling noises until Captain Amari elbows him. "If you're really that worried about Gabriel," she says, "Let these people talk instead of making a fuss about it." That shuts him up.

"I'd like to start by reiterating my objections to Moira's methods, both medically and personally."

Moira snorts. "Your objections are well-documented, Ms. Ziegler. I don't think we need to rehash that issue here."

"We wouldn't need to, if you hadn't _snuck into my infirmary_ and _harmed my patient_ \--"

"Harmed? Yesterday, you were talking about medically-induced comas. Today, the Commander is fine. One of us here gets results, Ms. Ziegler, and it's increasingly obvious which of us that is."

"You've got a real funny definition of 'fine'," Jesse cuts in.

Morrison clears his throat, and the room goes quiet. "This is supposed to be a briefing, people. Give me _facts_."

"Commander Reyes says he's seventeen years old," Jesse says, after it becomes apparent that nobody else is going to speak up. "I talked with him a little and double-checked everything he told me against his file, and all his details are correct: where he was born, where he grew up, where he went to high school, the names of his parents and all his sisters. He knows everything we'd expect a seventeen-year-old version of him to know. But when I asked about anything past that, like the Omnic Crisis, or Blackwatch? Blank stares. Don't know what reason he'd have to lie about that, so we're assuming he's telling the truth and really is just... seventeen."

"How did this happen?" Morrison asks.

Moira looks unconcerned as everyone turns to her. "Everyone knows that younger cells are more resilient, can take more abuse and heal faster. My genetic treatment made his cells younger, yes, and healed him, but also interacted in unexpected ways with the Commander's SEP enhancements. I was able to stop the process before he aged too far back--"

Angela laughs uncharitably. "'Too far'?"

"--but yes, for all intents and purposes, Commander Reyes is seventeen. It shouldn't be irreversible."

"But you don't know for sure?" Captain Amari asks.

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place. I've got a current full genetic profile on him that we ought to be able to have his cells revert to--it's what we were aiming for initially, before we overshot. I'll need to run some tests, but it seems likely I can have a first attempt ready to test on him within a day or two."

Morrison bangs his hand on the table, and everyone jumps. "No. No testing on him, not until you know it's going to work."

Moira raises an eyebrow at him. Jesse doesn't like that look. "Without access to him directly for testing, I'll need another source of information about the Commander's SEP enhancements."

Morrison and Captain Amari exchange a look, and Jesse doesn't like that one either. "We'll see what we can get you. What do we do with Commander Reyes in the meantime? Angela?"

"We haven't told him much about where he is or what's happening. I took the initiative to contact his, um, his next-of-kin, his sister Christina, and she's on a transport here now. I thought a familiar face, even one that's not the age he expects it to be, could be helpful."

To Jesse's surprise, Morrison nods in agreement. "Don't tell her anything more than she needs to know, but good, good idea." He sighs, scrubs a hand over his face and back through his hair. "So we'll need somebody to babysit them until Moira's treatment is ready."

Before anyone else can even speak, Jesse says, "I'll do it."

While they finish up the details of the briefing--Ana has more questions, and Moira does not have answers that are _nearly_ good enough--the transport pilot who's bringing Gabe's sister in pings Dr. Ziegler to let her know they're ten minutes out. She slides Jesse one of the folders that's sitting on the table in front of her; when he opens it, ignoring whatever it is that Morrison is saying, he finds a dossier about Gabe's sister.

Of course Overwatch has one of those, he thinks to himself grimly as he skims the information. He knows a lot of this already: Christina Reyes-Soo is an instructor at a community college, lives in the LA area not far from Gabe's parents, and is a few years younger than Gabe is--than Gabe was. She and Jesse have never met, but when Gabe talks about his family, he talks about Christina fondly, and Jesse feels a little like he knows her himself.

It's probably for the best that he only has ten minutes to prepare for her arrival, he muses, excusing himself from the briefing and heading to the hangar where the pilot had indicated they'd be landing. This way he doesn't have that much time to overthink it. He hasn't met any of Gabe's family before--Gabe hasn't said so, but Jesse knows he's been worried about what they might think about him dating somebody from work. The time's never been right, and Jesse really doesn't mind. He knows that even in its best version, this thing between them is...complicated to make people understand.

Hell, if Jesse wasn't the one in the middle of it, he'd be skeptical himself.

Point is, Jesse was pretty sure he wasn't going to meet any of Gabe's family at any point in the foreseeable future, and even if he did, he couldn't have imagined that it would be like this. Gabe's supposed to be _here_ for a meeting like this, not the reason for it.

The transport touches down. Jesse approaches once it's safe but before the engines are fully off, one hand on his hat to keep it from blowing away, and is waiting at the bottom of the ramp as it descends. A squat woman with short hair and a no-nonsense expression appears at the top, her head turned to speak to someone inside the transport. In profile, the family resemblance is uncanny, her face a lot like Gabe's, the same cheekbones and strong nose.

"I can get my own bags, thank you very much," she says to the person inside, and Jesse can hear the resemblance there too, the same steel her tone that he's heard so often in Gabe's. Jesse has just enough time to wonder what part of their childhoods had instilled this into the Reyes family before Christina makes her way out of the transport.

"Captain Morrison," she says, looking past Jesse. Her tone is frosty, and Jesse turns to see the Strike Commander making his way over from the entrance of the hangar.

Morrison makes a face that Jesse's sure neither he nor Christina misses, but he keeps walking closer and--surprising Jesse even more--doesn't bother to correct her. "Christina," he says, his tone walking a delicate line between professional and a bright, forced cheerfulness, "It's been too long. Wish it could've been under better circumstances."

"I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what these mysterious 'circumstances' are." Oh, hey, Jesse recognizes the contrary set of Christina's jaw too. "What I was told is that my brother is in some kind of trouble and that I should be here to try to help him. Your doctor said he might not recognize me, and that I should bring things from our childhood that might help 'jog his memory'. My first thought is some kind of amnesia, but that's the kind of thing that happens to people on soap operas, not grown-ass men in global peacekeeping operations."

Jesse doesn't quite manage to stifle his snort. Christina glances at him sideways, and the corners of her own mouth quirk up at his reaction.

"So what's going on? Why am I here? When can I see Gabe?"

Morrison puts his hands up, a gesture of surrender. "Those are all good questions, and I'm sure Agent McCree will answer them all for you in due time."

Jesse lifts a hand to his hat and tips it, smiling to hide his annoyance. "Ma'am."

Christina's mouth quirks again, a little different this time. "Well then, I won't take up any more of your time."

Morrison's jaw shifts, and for a second Jesse thinks he's going to say something, but he doesn't, just nods to them both and leaves as quickly as he'd arrived.

With Morrison gone, Christina turns back to Jesse. "I hear you might have some answers for me, Agent McCree." She grabs her luggage, obviously ready to go, and so Jesse leads her out of the hangar and back in the general direction of the infirmary.

"I might indeed. They've told me not to tell you any more than you need to know, but this one, well, it's a little complicated."

Christina stops and eyes Jesse. "'Complicated' how?"

* * *

No matter what age he is, Gabe Reyes is still Gabe Reyes, and Gabe Reyes is not a man who trusts easily. Even if what they were trying to tell him was more believable, the Gabe Reyes that Jesse knows wouldn't believe them without verifying their information for himself, and so Jesse's plan is simple: he's going to break the news to Gabe and not worry about whether or not Gabe is going to believe it. Christina's presence should go a ways to helping Gabe believe, and Jesse intends to bring her in after the inevitable first round of questions to bolster his case. He'll leave the two of them alone, let them get whatever it is they have to work out worked out, and then see where things stand.

He and Christina stop just short of the room where Gabe's being kept. There are guards posted surreptitiously in the hallway, close enough that if anything happens, they'll be ready to assist, but far enough from the door that they can't be seen from inside the room. Jesse wonders what they've been told, if they know about--about Gabe, or if they've just been told "don't let anybody enter or exit this room who isn't on this list".

Christina, it turns out, isn't on that list, and Jesse wishes for half a second that Blackwatch had rank that he could pull before he calls in Angela instead. Jesse leaves them to sort that out and makes his way past the remaining guard into Gabe's room.

He pulls the door closed behind him.

"You're back," Gabe says. He sounds surprised.

"Just couldn't stay away," Jesse says, his tone teasing, not even thinking about it. It's what he'd do with Gabe, and this is Gabe, right? He's going to pointedly ignore the blush that spreads across seventeen-year-old Gabe's cheeks. That's what he's going to do, for both their sakes.

Gabe folds himself up a little as Jesse moves further into the room, making space for Jesse to sit down on the bed, but Jesse takes a seat in the chair next to the bed instead. It seems like a safer choice, and besides, he and this chair are old friends at this point.

"Nobody's told me what's going on yet," Gabe says, pulling his knees up to his chest in what Jesse can only assume is an effort to play off making space for him. "I don't know what you guys are trying to hide from me, but you can't hide it forever."

"That's why I'm here." Jesse leans forward, makes his voice a little conspiratorial. He's a well-trained operative, and he's not above making use of the situation, no matter how weird it feels to take advantage of his de-aged partner's obvious crush on him. "I can tell you what's going on, but I know you're not going to believe me."

"Why wouldn't I believe you?"

Jesse bites back all the answers about how he _knows_ Gabe and how Gabe's skepticism is important, how it has kept them alive in the field. Instead, he says, " _I_ wouldn't believe it, if I were you. It's a little hard to believe."

Gabe sets his jaw, looks Jesse in the eyes. "Try me."

"You're not seventeen--or, no, _you're_ seventeen, but you're not supposed to be."

"What?"

Jesse takes a breath and tries again. "You weren't seventeen yesterday. Yesterday, you were an adult, forty-something years old--" (he really ought to know that number, shouldn't he, or at least have looked it up in preparation for this conversation) "--with an important job and an important life and people who needed you, and today you're _seventeen_."

Gabe doesn't answer right away, just looks at Jesse. The expression is so familiar, even on Gabe's young face. "How would something like that even happen?"

"It's...complicated. I don't quite understand it myself, but it involves a couple different rounds of genetic therapy going a couple different kinds of wrong."

Gabe frowns. "Why would I get genetic therapy?"

"Far as I can tell, you didn't approve of the latest round, the one that did this to you. Sounds like it should be something that can be fixed, though, so that's good." Jesse isn't going to share his doubts about Moira and her work with Gabe--it's up to her to fix this mess, and the last thing they need is Gabe not agreeing to the treatment.

Gabe stays quiet, and Jesse lets him. This is a lot to take in.

"It's okay if you don't believe me yet, and it's okay if you've got questions. I'll do my best to answer them, or we've actually got your sister Christina here--"

Gabe interrupts him, finally speaking up. "Are you one of the people?"

"Excuse me?"

If Gabe's blush had been bad before, now it can practically be seen from space. "The people who needed me, you said there were people who needed me. Are you one of those people?"

Jesse thinks, for a moment, about how much he loves Gabe, and he smiles. "Yeah, yeah I am." Then his eyes focus on seventeen-year-old Gabe again, and he wipes the smile from his face. "Your job is as a sort of military commander, and I'm your second-in-command."

"Sort-of military, or sort-of commander?' Gabe has unfolded himself now and is leaning forward interestedly.

"Sort-of military. It's a global peacekeeping organization, technically, but--"

"Overwatch?"

Jesse stops, taken aback. "Wait, you remember?"

"No, but you only asked me about three things earlier and the other two didn't sound like they'd be peacekeeping organizations." Jesse boggles at him, and Gabe laughs. "You people weren't telling me _anything_ , did you really think I wasn't going to be paying attention to the few things you did?"

"Good point."

"Okay, so what's the Crisis?" When Jesse laughs, Gabe looks indignant. "What? You said it was okay if I had questions."

"I did say that--you got me. We'll get all your questions answered eventually, I promise. For now, let's get your sister in here and see if she can't convince you that what I'm telling you is true." Jesse gets up from the chair and heads for the door to retrieve Christina. Behind him, Gabe mumbles something he can't quite make out, and he turns back quizzically.

"I _said_ I already believe you," Gabe says. His tone is defensive and his posture is a sulk, although Jesse's not sure why. "Bring my sister in, it's fine, whatever."

Jesse pokes his head out into the hallway and beckons Christina in. She gives the guards a dirty look as she passes them, but enters the room with her head up. When she and Gabe see each other, both of them let out a quiet, disbelieving _oh my god_.

"Look at you, Gabi," Christina breathes. She sits heavily in the chair next to the bed that Jesse had just vacated.

" _You're_ my little sister Christina? You look like my mom--our mom, I guess?"

"Hey now, even I know you don't say something like that to a lady," Jesse says as Christina sits back in her chair, surprised. "I'll leave you two to it, let you get reacquainted. I'll be right outside when you need me."

"Please stay," Gabe says.

Jesse does not stay. He wants to give the two of them their privacy, and there are things he really needs to be doing instead. Blackwatch is on its fourth day now with no commander and a highly-distracted 2IC, and work has been piling up in his absence. He's also wary of the way Gabe is looking at him, and very much aware of the way Christina is, and so it's for the best that he retreats from the infirmary back to the commander's office. Angela knows where to find him if he's needed.

* * *

Jesse makes it less than ten minutes into the daunting number of things in his and Gabe's shared inbox before there's a knock at the door. It slides open to reveal Prithi, and Jesse has to laugh.

"You have this place staked out, or what?" Jesse says, looking up at Prithi for a moment before looking back down at the computer.

Prithi flops into the chair in front of the table that's been serving as Jesse's desk and smiles (a little ominously, Jesse thinks). "We've missed you. You and the Commander have been MIA for the last week."

"Stuff went..." Jesse pinches the bridge of his nose. "Stuff went sideways, and we're still trying to get it right-side up. I'll be pulling double duty and then some until it all gets righted."

"So I should tell Shiga that he can stop staking out Reyes' office?"

"Yeah, he's not--it's gonna be a little while."

Prithi pulls out her comm and types on it for a few seconds before shoving it back into her pocket. "When we went to the infirmary this morning to check in on Reyes, they wouldn't let us see him. Anything we should know about?"

Jesse stops. The briefing with Morrison had made it sound like they were keeping the situation as quiet as possible, and realistically there was no need for Prithi and the rest of the strike team to know the details of Gabe's incapacitation. Jesse could ask them to step up and help him out with the day to day of Blackwatch operations without any further details. But on the other hand, they're Blackwatch: excellent at finding things out and terrible at taking _no_ for an answer.

Well, that's a risk Jesse's going to have to take. There's too much else going on right now for him to worry about this. "Nothing I can tell you--it's all real hush-hush right now. As soon as there's anything I _can_ tell you, though, you'll be the first to know."

Prithi looks dissatisfied with this answer, but any complaints she'd had are set aside as the door opens behind her and Shiga sticks his head in.

"Heard you're temporarily the new boss, boss," Shiga says, grinning.

Jesse just shakes his head. "How does Reyes ever get anything done with you assholes around?" he says, only mostly joking.

"It's a mystery," Shiga says.

"You need us to help with anything?" Prithi asks.

Jesse's not sure if she's being serious, but hell, she offered and he's gonna take her up on it regardless. He sorts through the paperwork--god bless Gabe Reyes' ridiculous color-coding system, it makes it really easy to tell the classification and level of importance of every scrap of it--and splits it into piles they can divide and conquer. Prithi takes the pile Jesse gives her and finds an open bit of floor, spreads it out in inscrutable stacks and dives in without complaint. Shiga groans but takes a pile as well, keeping the pile in his lap and making space on the front corner of Jesse's table to work. Jesse keeps the most important stuff, the stuff he knows Gabe would only trust to him or to himself, and they all get to work.

It wasn't ever going to be fun, but it goes much more quickly with more help, and they do visit, joke a little, make the whole thing a little less bad. Jesse doesn't realize he's lost track of time until his comm pings: he's needed in the infirmary again.

"Everything okay?" Prithi asks from the floor.

Jesse pushes back from the table, shuffling his pile of papers together. "Sounds like the Commander needs me."

"So, business as usual?" Shiga teases.

Jesse's not going to dignify that with a response, but still, he can't hide his grin.

* * *

When he gets back to Gabe's room, Christina is in the hallway. She doesn't see him at first; she's got her back to the wall and both hands over her eyes. Jesse slows his approach, watches her for a moment or two--the way her jaw works, the familiar way she centers herself. She's a Reyes, that's for sure.

Jesse clears his throat as he approaches, and Christina straightens almost immediately. "Agent McCree."

"Miss Christina." Jesse reaches up and touches the brim of his hat respectfully, mostly because he's pretty sure it'll make her crack a smile.

She smirks a little. Close enough.

Christina fills him in on what she and Gabe had talked about. She also fills him in on the doctor who'd come in (Moira, by the sound of it) and how she'd drawn blood and taken scans of Gabe.

"She was, uh," Christina says, obviously trying to come up with a nice descriptor and having a difficult time of it.

"Unpleasant?" Jesse suggests.

"Yes, let's go with 'unpleasant'.” Christina shakes her head. "Gabi was not the most cooperative, and I can understand why. She wanted to take some of _my_ blood too?"

Jesse tries to keep his face neutral. "Did you let her?"

Christina eyes him. Maybe he's not doing as good a job at keeping neutral as he thinks. "She wouldn't tell me why she needed it, so I told her I'd have to pass."

"Probably a good choice." Jesse huffs a laugh. "She's the one who's gonna undo this, but she's also the one who did it in the first place."

Christina's eyebrows hit her hairline.

"It was an _accident_ ," Jesse says, like that explains anything. "Anyway, let's talk about the next steps. Are you sticking around here for a little while, or are you heading back to California tonight?"

Christina taps her luggage. "Fall quarter doesn't start for another week and a half, so I can stay for a little while. If I'm going to stay though, I'd like somewhere to sleep, something to eat, and a stiff drink--not necessarily in that order."

Jesse laughs. "Let's see what we can do."

* * *

Turns out Morrison has already set Christina up with a guest suite, one of the ones that's usually reserved for visiting dignitaries who travel with a team. Christina stares at the ridiculously big bed in the main bedroom, a little longingly, while Jesse stares at the smaller bed in one of the adjoining rooms, putting the pieces together.

"I'm guessing they're gonna discharge him soon," Jesse calls over his shoulder. "Looks like they're expecting him to stay with you."

"I'm sure I've handled worse." Christina comes to stand next to Jesse in the doorway. "Whatever he needs. He's family."

Jesse nods. He knows the feeling--Gabe's family, and he'll do whatever Gabe needs him to.

* * *

They go off-base to get dinner from that pizza place that Gabe loves and bring the pizzas back to share with Gabe. He lights up when Christina brings them in. She drops one of the boxes on the bed, the Big Pep with the three kinds of pepperonis and the pepperoncinis, and they watch in horrified fascination as Gabe proceeds to devour it much more quickly than any human should eat.

"Hungry?” Jesse says, amusement in his voice, as Gabe polishes off his fifth piece.

Gabe licks the seasoning and grease off of each of his fingers before he answers. "Starving! The 'lunch' they brought me earlier was, like, a pudding cup and an orange slice." He picks up a sixth slice. Jesse's glad that he likes what Christina ordered, and that she's willing to share.

Angela pokes her head in as they're finishing up. Jesse gets a disapproving look about the pizza boxes, but Jesse just shrugs. He's just doing what he has to.

"How are you doing, Gabriel?" Angela asks, her voice cheerful.

"A lot better," Gabe says through a mouthful of pizza. "When are you guys gonna let me leave?"

"That's actually what I'm here to talk to you about." Angela moves the pizza box slightly so that she can sit on the edge of the bed. "There's no reason for us to keep you full time, and so we're going to release you into your sister's care, here on base. But we'll probably need you to come back in for tests, so we can figure this thing out. Is that okay?"

Gabe nods.

Angela goes through the discharge paperwork with Gabe and Christina, and then cuts them loose. The wave of relief that washes over Jesse surprises him a little, but when he thinks about it, after the last week, Gabe leaving the infirmary on his own two feet is a victory, no matter what shape he's in when he does it.

* * *

Gabe is unimpressed by Christina's room. Jesse half-considers taking him to the room of one of the new recruits, which are basically shoeboxes with a shared bathroom, but that's probably more trouble than it's worth.

"Can't I stay with you?" Gabe asks him. Behind Gabe, Jesse sees Christina make a thoughtful face.

"Ain't got room in my quarters." This is not a lie, not exactly. His quarters are definitely single occupancy. However, those quarters are a formality; in actuality, Jesse pretty much lives with Gabe in Gabe's much bigger commander's quarters. But he's not going to--

Gabe interrupts his train of thought. "What about my old room?"

"What, like in California? Where you grew up?"

"No! My room here. Gabriel Reyes's room. If I'm a military whatever who's stationed here, there has to be somewhere where I sleep."

Jesse pauses. He doesn't have an immediate excuse for that. "I'd have to see if that was okay. The doc gave very explicit instructions about you staying with your sister." This is a better answer than _if you see your quarters, you'll almost certainly figure out that we're together, and I can't even begin to guess how that would affect a horny seventeen-year-old version of you._

"Can you ask?"

"Gabi," Christina admonishes. "They're already doing so much for you."

"It's okay," Jesse says, forcing a smile. "I'll ask."

* * *

Jesse wakes up to the sound of his comm beeping. He groans and turns over to grab it from the nightstand--and he falls off the sofa.

He remembers, slightly too late, what had happened last night. He'd gone back to the room he and Gabe share. He'd taken all the stuff that showed he lived there: the gear from the closet, the toiletries from the bathroom, the boots under the bed, the spare charging pad on the bedside table, the vidframe with the shots of the two of them. He'd taken all these things and shoved them all in a box, which he'd then stowed half-behind the sofa in Gabe's office. Once the room had been sufficiently scrubbed of his presence, he retrieved Gabe from Christina's quarters and brought him to Gabe's room, where Gabe had promptly passed out in the bed. Jesse had taken the sofa. They'd told Angela that they'd keep an eye on Gabe, and that's what he was going to do.

He untangles himself from the blankets and finds his comm, which is still beeping. From the other room, Gabe lets out an annoyed groan.

Angela is on the comm, letting Jesse know that it's time for Gabe to come in for more tests.

Jesse gets up, gets dressed quickly, runs a hand through his probably-preposterous hair (it _feels_ preposterous), and goes to the bedroom. The door between the bedroom and the front room where Jesse was sleeping has been cracked open all night, but Jesse throws it open, letting in the light from the front room.

Gabe groans again and burrows deeper under the covers.

"Morning, sunshine," Jesse says, tapping the bedframe with the toe of his boot. He does not get an answer, but the covers shift slightly. "The doc says it's time for more tests, we gotta get moving."

A muffled _no_ comes from under the covers.

"Sorry, I must've misheard you. I could've sworn I heard you say _no_ just now."

"No," Gabe repeats. "C'mon, I need at least half an hour more sleep."

"Oh, well in _that_ case..."

Gabe's head pops out from under the covers. "Really?!"

"No, not really." Jesse kicks the bed frame again, relishing the annoyed noise Gabe makes when he does. "C'mon, you wanna stay on the doc's good side, I promise."

Gabe gives him a withering look and doesn't move.

* * *

"Your brother is kind of a brat," Jesse says to Christina, over breakfast in the mess hall. They've left Gabe to Angela's care in the medical wing, and now Jesse needs something to eat and as much coffee as possible.

She laughs, obviously trying not to snort her tea. "How long have you two worked together? Surely you're not just figuring that out now."

"Long enough," Jesse says, grinning, shaking his head. "You're not wrong."

"He's just gotten better at hiding it, as he's gotten older."

"And once you've saved the world, people do tend to let you get away with a little bit more."

Christina gives him a knowing look. "I bet you don't let him get away with anything."

"What are friends for?" Jesse says, with an ease he's not feeling. He doesn't like that knowing look--he doesn't know what she knows.

* * *

Jesse corners Moira outside of the infirmary's adjacent research lab that evening. "What's the prognosis?"

She looks him up and down, the way he's standing close in her space, obviously meant to be menacing. She smirks. "My tests yielded some promising data, but it's too soon to say. Are you worried, cowboy? You shouldn't be. I'm the best at what I do."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about," Jesse mutters. He steps back a little, unsettled by her smirk. He can't shake the feeling that all of this happened for some nefarious reason. "I've got my eye on you."

Moira smiles at Angela as the doctor exits the lab. Angela looks tired, harried, and does not return the smile. Then Moira turns her attention back to Jesse. "I know you've got your eye on me. I'd be insulted if you didn't."

Gabe exits the lab last. His face lights up when he sees Jesse.

Jesse sees Moira notice, and he worries a little more.

* * *

The second and third days of tests are much like the first. Jesse drags Gabe out of bed despite his protests, and Gabe undergoes a battery of tests at the infirmary while Jesse manages Christina or Blackwatch or both. They reunite when they're both finished for the day, and Jesse entertains Gabe, for the evening, not answering his questions about the future and kindly shutting down his adorable, unsophisticated flirting, until it's time for bed and doing it all again tomorrow. Gabe is goading him, Jesse knows, trying to get a rise out of him, trying to get answers. But one of them has to be the adult here, and while normally it's Gabe, this time it has to be Jesse.

It's a _nice_ routine, and Jesse doesn't really realize that he's looking forward to it until it falls to pieces. He's partway through a debrief with Valdez and Edwards and the job in Acapulco when his comm starts shrilling an alarm. It's only his comm, too, so it's not a Blackwatch emergency, and right now, that can only mean...Gabe.

"Sounds like you should deal with that," Edwards says, nodding at Jesse's comm.

Jesse pauses for a moment before he answers. "You guys are good?"

"We were mostly done anyway," Valdez says. She gives him what she thinks is a reassuring smile. "We'll document the rest and leave it on the Commander's desk. Don't worry."

Jesse would be happy not to worry about something right now. He would be goddamn _delighted_. He gives them both a grateful look and heads out into the hallway to check what's going on. He manages to get the alarm turned off and heads towards the source of the alarm: the lab.

Angela is outside the lab door when Jesse shows up, her arms crossed, her expression sour. Jesse can see past her into the lab, where Moira is standing over Strike Commander Morrison, who appears to be strapped to a chair with a bunch of wires and tubes attached to him. The Strike Commander also doesn't look pleased, but whether that's with the emergency or just with his situation, Jesse can't tell.

"He's gone," Angela hisses through her teeth.

Jesse stops, regarding her carefully. "Gone?" he repeats, because that could mean any of a number of things.

"The little shit's gone missing," Moira calls from where she's leaned over the Strike Commander. She's holding an incredibly large syringe

"She 'turned her back' for 'just one second'," Angela says, glaring into the lab as she does _scathing_ air-quotes, "and Commander Reyes escaped."

"He's smart and resourceful, and he was fed up with the tests you're running, it was an inevitability--"

Angela goes incandescent with anger, storming into the lab. " _My_ tests? This whole thing is _your_ fault! You weren't watching him when you should have been, and we wouldn't even need to be _doing this_ if you hadn't gone behind my back to _meddle_ with _my patient_ \--"

Jesse steps into the lab and tries to insert himself between the two doctors. "Ladies! Ladies."

They both glare at him, which is, okay, not great, but at least they've stopped yelling at each other.

"Do we know where the Commander is?"

Moira shakes her head. "What part of 'missing' don't you understand, McCree?"

Angela sighs. "The gate guards at the perimeter have been alerted, so he can't have gone far."

"So that narrows it down to, what, the entirety of the base?" Moira rolls her eyes and jabs the Strike Commander with the giant syringe. The Strike Commander yelps, and Jesse does his best to hide a grin.

"You need me to find him."

"He needs to be found," Moira corrects. "However that is accomplished."

Well, that sounds ominous. Jesse sets his jaw. "Don't worry, I'll find him."

* * *

After making sure that Gabe isn't back in his room, Jesse heads to the guest suite and recruits Christina into the search. She won't know the base like he does, but she might have a better idea of how her brother thinks. She has the guest comm that came with the guest suite so she can get in touch with him if she needs to, and so they head in separate directions.

Jesse starts by looking in all the places he used to hide back when he joined Blackwatch, all his old haunts and hidey-holes. He's reminded how much he's grown since joining Blackwatch as he attempts to pull himself up into the ceiling vent above the Blackwatch break room, not nearly as nimble or as flexible as he used to be. Luckily, he only has to poke his head in to see that Gabe isn't in there; he's not sure he'd fit if he'd needed to climb in.

He checks the Blackwatch storeroom, the warehouse by the back gate, and six different storage closets and turns up nothing. He's in storage closet number seven when his comm pings--it's Christina.

She knows where Gabe is.

Jesse finds him in the Hall of Heroes, which is the official name of the on-base exhibit that Jesse privately calls the _Jack Morrison Is So Far Up His Own Ass That He Can See His Own Esophagus: The Dog and Pony Show_. It had been put in around the same time as the big fucking statue of the Strike Commander in the courtyard, during the PR blitz they'd had to do a while back to convince the UN that it was worth continuing to fund them. In fairness to him, the Strike Commander has always seemed a little uncomfortable with it, the exhibit and the statue and all of it, but then again, he _could've_ said no.

Gabe's most of the way through the exhibit, stopped in front of a display about the Omnic Crisis. The vid describes the Crisis, the causes, the effects, how close humanity had come to losing everything. It's a montage of destruction: a Bastion unit shoots a fighter jet, which spirals out of the sky; civilians screaming; cities overrun. Jesse is able to pick footage of Eichenwalde out of the montage--he's heard the stories Reinhardt tells. Then, the music shifts and the Overwatch old guard stare out from the vidscreen. Gabe's front and center, leading the charge, flanked by his team. His gaze is determined, and his face is--well, before the last week, Jesse would've said it was _young_. They're all looking into the distance, grim and patriotic, surrounded by the smoking remains of a whole battlefield's-worth of omnics. Reinhardt is holding a flag with the Overwatch insignia on it, and it waves patriotically too. They're all a little bit bloody, a little bit bruised. The dark horizon grows brighter as the sun comes up, on the battlefield and metaphorically on the human race.

Jesse knows the story. He's seen the vid before--he and Shiga had spent one very drunk evening in here wandering through the displays and putting fake mustaches on every Strike Commander they could find. He also lived through the Crisis, younger than Gabe is now, a terrified kid. He remembers enough. He doesn't need to relive it.

The vid cycles back to the beginning, and Gabe turns to Jesse. "This is what I have to look forward to?" he asks. Jesse can tell that it's meant to be flippant, but he can't hide how shaken he sounds, and Jesse can't blame him.

"What you have to look forward to is more of Dr. Ziegler's tests," Jesse says. He chuckles at his own joke, because Gabe sure isn't laughing. "What? You _do_."

"You know what I mean! Not me, exactly, but--" Gabe unfolds his arms here so that he can gesture vaguely, at the vidscreen and at himself "-- _me_ , Gabriel Reyes, age 17."

Jesse does know what he means. He understands intimately what it is to be seventeen years old and have all of your plans pulled out from under you, to see your life stretch out in front of you and have it be nothing that you expected.

"It's not fair."

Jesse smiles a rueful smile. "Never is, kid."

Gabe's eyes search his face. Jesse's not sure what he's looking for, but it's so familiar, so like the Gabe that Jesse knows and loves, that he nearly lets his guard down for a second. When he doesn't find it, whatever it is, Gabe scoffs a little. "Where are you?"

"Right here?"

"No, in this stupid exhibit. I've watched all the dumb vids and I haven't seen you anywhere." Gabe crosses his arms defensively as Jesse very obviously hides a smile. "I wasn't looking for you! I wanted to learn more about the thing I'm commander of! That's all. But Gabriel Reyes isn't in most of these things, and as far as this exhibit is concerned, you don't seem to exist."

"Who knows? Maybe I don't." Before he can stop himself, Jesse winks at Gabe. The kid ducks his head and grins, and lets Jesse march him back to the lab.

* * *

The second time Gabe escapes from the lab, Jesse finds him in their quarters. Jesse plays Angela's slightly hysterical call for him, and he at least has the grace to look embarrassed that he hasn't stayed where Jesse had asked him to. He doesn't put up much of a fight when Jesse sighs at him and takes him back to Angela. (He also doesn't tell Jesse how he'd slipped past the guards they'd posted outside the door, no matter how many times Jesse asks.)

The third time, Christina finds him in one of the supply closets near the lab, and it's a good thing that Jesse isn't the one to find him. He'd had to cut short an important call with Shiga and the team in Toledo to search for, as Moira's message had called him, _that little shit_ , and if Jesse had been the one to find him, there might have been yelling, which nobody needs.

The fourth time, Jesse doesn't even get a call. He's in the commander's office, trying to untangle the Toledo mess, when the door opens and there stands Gabe. It takes Jesse a second to realize what's going on--he knows he has the only key to Gabe's office, but _of course_ the biometric lock would open for a younger version of Gabe. He's still Gabe, after all.

Jesse presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and groans. When he looks back up, Gabe has stepped inside and let the door shut behind him. His grin is pleased and combative.

Jesse's just about to open his mouth to ask _WHY, WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS_ when it occurs to him that maybe, just maybe, this is how Gabe had felt during Jesse's early years with Overwatch.

 _Holy shit,_ he thinks, _was_ ** _I_** _like this?_

"If this is some kind of lesson from the universe," he says aloud, "I gotta say, I am not appreciating it."

Gabe looks at him quizzically.

Jesse just sighs and waves at the sofa before going back to his tablet. "Sit down, this has to get finished before we can take you anywhere."

He's so engrossed in the maps Shiga had sent him that he doesn't even notice that Gabe is doing anything besides sitting quietly until he hears Gabe swear quietly. Jesse's head swivels up to see what's gone wrong--and he sees Gabe, holding the box of stuff from the bedroom. Jesse's out of the chair and across the room immediately, snatching the box out of Gabe's hands, but it's too late. Gabe has the vidframe in his hands and is looking up at Jesse with huge eyes.

"So...you and me?" Gabe asks hesitantly, like he's afraid of the answer despite already knowing what it is.

Jesse sinks down onto the sofa next to Gabe. "Yeah, kid, you and me." He sighs. "I love him, with all my heart. I don't know who I'd be without him."

Gabe's quiet, apparently processing this. Jesse watches him watch the vidframe cycle: selfies of the two of them on missions in Christchurch, Almaty, Dakar, Omaha; a snap of them that Shiga had taken at last year's Blackwatch Halloween bash, dressed as vampire and vampire hunter; the one Gabe apparently loves of Jesse, on a horse, looking over his shoulder, tipping his hat, smiling at Gabe; the one Jesse _does_ love of Gabe in the morning, still half-asleep, smiling at him. There's more, too, more than Jesse can even remember, and watching seventeen-year-old Gabe watching them makes something clench in his chest.

When the cycle starts to repeat, Gabe looks up at him again. "And he loves you too."

"Yeah." Jesse smiles. "Yeah, he does."

"And we're happy? You're happy?"

"Yeah, as much as we can be."

Gabe nods his understanding. Then he makes what he must think is a sly face, looking sideways at Jesse, and says, "So...you and _me_?"

Jesse laughs out loud. "Absolutely not. You ain't him, kid, same way I wasn't me when he met me. We had to grow into the people we are now for this to work."

"But--"

" _No_ ," Jesse repeats. He takes the vidframe from Gabe and puts it back in the box, before standing and putting the box back where he'd had it hidden before. He wonders briefly if it still _needs_ to be hidden, since seventeen-year-old Gabe knows all about its contents now, but it's already boxed up and besides, Jesse doesn't want to encourage him.

"Not even a little kiss?" Gabe asks.

Jesse laughs and offers Gabe a hand up off the sofa. "Maybe when you're older."

* * *

The next morning, there's a message from Moira saying that they should bring Gabe to the infirmary lab as soon as possible, because the treatment is ready for trial.

"Not sure I like that word, 'trial'," Jesse mutters under his breath as he and Gabe make their way to the infirmary.

Gabe shrugs. "Not like they can test it on anyone but me." It's true, but it doesn't make Jesse any more comfortable with the situation as he watches Moira strap Gabe into the lab chair. He doesn't even feel that much better when Angela assures him that she's double-checked Moira's calculations and that they're both as sure as they can be that this will work.

"You'll just have to trust us," Angela says.

"You, I trust. Her? Not so much."

"Well," Angela says, sighing as she shoos Jesse out of the room, "We don't have much of a choice, do we?"

* * *

Jesse's back at the commander's desk in Gabe's office when the door opens again. Gabe's standing in the doorway, but it's his _Gabe_ , Commander Reyes, back the way he ought to be. Jesse stands up so fast that he almost knocks the chair over, nearly sprints across the room to catch him in a hug.

"Those liars! They said they would let me know how it went!" he says into Gabe's shoulder.

"It went well," Gabe says, holding him tightly. "Angela said I could let you know."

"Goddamn, Gabe, I _missed_ you." Jesse can feel himself tearing up. He doesn't let go.

"I was right here."

"Yeah, right. You were, but you were a real brat about it."

Gabe pulls back far enough that Jesse can see him grinning. "Turnabout is fair play." Then he kisses Jesse, and Jesse can't even be mad.

* * *

Christina is scheduled on the next flight out. She teases her brother and packs her things, and Jesse escorts her to the transport.

She stops at the bottom of the ramp and turns back to Jesse. "So," Christina says, looking him square in the eye, "You and my brother."

Jesse knows he ought to play it cool, but if she knows, well-- "Yeah. He told you?"

Christina winks at him. "No, you just did."

 _Wow, McCree,_ Jesse thinks to himself, _some covert operative_ ** _you_** _are_.

"But it's obvious," Christina continues, "And it wasn't hard to guess. Especially after Dr. Ziegler told me that _you're_ the person he had listed as his next-of-kin."

Jesse hadn't known that one, and he has to take a moment to digest that fact, pride and surprise, before he can say anything else to Christina. "You're not mad? Judgemental? Always got the sense that was why we skipped out on the Reyes family Christmases."

Christina shakes her head. "You obviously care about him, and he's _obviously_ smitten. If Gabi is happy, that's good enough for me." She pulls Jesse into a hug, and the meaning is obvious: they're _family_. She whispers in his ear. "Keep him safe, will you?"

He squeezes her. "You know I will."

* * *

They put the things back in their room together: Jesse's boots, Jesse's charging pad, Jesse's toothbrush. He's missed this, the feeling of _home_ that his things here give him. They put the vidframe back on the bedside table, and Gabe puts an arm around Jesse's waist and watches the cycle, all the way through.

"So," Gabe says, looking earnestly at Jesse as the cycle starts to repeat, "You said maybe when I was older--am I older now?"

Jesse nods and laughs and lets Gabe kiss him. He's missed this too.


End file.
